


The Debt

by Decepticonsensual



Category: Discworld - Terry Pratchett
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-02
Updated: 2018-01-02
Packaged: 2019-02-26 14:49:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 679
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13238016
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Decepticonsensual/pseuds/Decepticonsensual
Summary: Esmerelda Weatherwax owes Gytha Ogg a debt.  She just didn't expect Nanny to collect in the form of babysitting duties.  Anyone who thinks that's the soft option, though, has never met the Ogg grandchildren - or Granny Weatherwax.





	The Debt

Granny Weatherwax cautiously cracked one eye open.

 

Everywhere she could see, there were Oggs.

 

Big ones, little ones, strapping ones, tiny ones in arms.  Granny had brought most of them into the world personally, and yet the sheer  _number_ of them could still overwhelm her.  They seemed to spring out of the cracks in the flagstones and slip down from the chimney.

 

It didn’t help that they were all leaning over where she lay on the bed, concern shining in approximately a million doe-like eyes.

 

“Well?” she demanded.  “Can’t you read the sign?”  The board with its inscription of I ATEN’T DEAD was still clutched in her long fingers.

 

One of the taller children – she recognised him as Our Jason’s oldest boy – scratched the back of his neck.  “Sorry, Mistress Weatherwax,” he offered.  “We knew you weren’t dead, but you were awful still, and…”

 

“Was you Borrowing, Granny?” a miniscule girl piped up excitedly.  She took a running leap and tried to scramble onto the bed, but Our Jason’s Oldest tackled her around the waist with ease and hefted her aloft as she shrieked happily.

 

“I was.”  

 

Her cousin set her down, and the girl clasped her hands, looking for all the world like she was barely holding herself back from hurtling onto Granny’s lap.  “Can you teach me to do it?”

 

Granny studied the child.  “You’re Mary, aren’t you?”  At the answering nod, she grunted.  “Maybe I can.  Maybe I will, one day. When you’re older.  It’s not a toy, understand?”

Mary seemed caught between nodding and shaking her head, and two of the smaller boys chose that moment to dispute the ownership of a small wooden boat, which quickly turned into a flurry of smacks and red-faced wailing on both sides, which set off the baby, and meanwhile one of the older girls was trying to sneak a look in one of the bottles lined up on Granny’s shelves, and -

 

Esmeralda Weatherwax rose from the bed like a ghost ship emerging from a black sea, all straight, skeletal timbers and air of imminent danger.  The children, as one, fell silent.

 

“Right,” said Granny.  “I can’t be having with this.”

 

***

 

Some time later, a scruffy grey cat peered around the corner of the fireplace.

 

Granny, riding comfortably in the back of its mind, surveyed the scene with a certain satisfaction.  A handful of the more adventurous children had been pushed out of doors, with instructions to collect firewood and a promise of one of the scones their grandmother had left for them, with cream and honey, if they did well.  (There was a small mountain of the things secreted away in the kitchen; Gytha Ogg might have relished giving Esmeralda her assignment a little too much, but she wasn’t so heartless as to leave her completely without ammunition.) She’d set the nosy older girl to supervising some of the younger ones in distilling essence of woundwort under Granny’s instructions, which wasn’t magic, but looked enough like it to keep them enthralled (and really, who was to say that  _wasn’t_ magic?). And Our Jason’s Oldest, who was a dab hand with a needle, was mending a set of curtains while keeping an eye on the youngest of the Ogg brood.  All in all, not an unsatisfactory arrangement.

 

It helped, she thought, that the children knew about her Borrowing. They couldn’t guess  _where_ she was at any given time, but if any of them started scrapping, they quickly broke apart the moment a crow flew overhead or a mouse squeaked from the shrubbery.

 

Of course, Borrowing had other advantages, too.  She could keep them all in her sights this way, without having to chase them up and down on her own two legs.  And, well…

 

The grey cat padded over to where Mary was laying flowers to dry in the windowsill.  Mary giggled, and reached down to pet the animal’s head gently, with the exaggerated care of a child handed something precious to hold.

 

The cat arched up into the touch, and in its mind, Granny allowed herself to smile.


End file.
